AFC Portchester boss Dave Carter outlines what would represent 'successful' first season in charge ahead of US Portsmouth PO postcode Wessex League Premier clash

The eighth-placed Royals make the short trip to face PO postcode league rivals US Portsmouth at the Victory Stadium tomorrow night looking to continue their good recent form.

Portchester will be bidding to further close the gap on place-above Baffins Milton Rovers – currently sitting seventh – who they moved to within seven points of with a game in hand after beating them at the weekend.

Carter, currently in his first season at the helm having swapped the Moneyfields hotseat for the Royals last February, is hoping his troops can finish the season with a flourish after struggling to find their feet in the early stages of the campaign.

The visit to Tom Grice's US Portsmouth starts a run of their final nine league matches, while they have Hampshire Senior Cup and League Cup semi-final ties against Southern League Premier South outfit Farnborough and fierce rivals Fareham Town respectively to look forward to next month.

‘Our objective is to get as high up the league - if we can hit sixth or seventh and get to one of these cup finals - I think that’ll be a successful season,’ said Carter.

‘Everyone keeps going around saying we should have been doing this or that. It’s the first season back in the Wessex League for me, first season in the Wessex for a lot of the players - yeah, they’ve played there before but not for four or five years - so it’s just been getting used to the club.

‘If you look at our results you look at how we’ve turned that around since October, really. If you finish strongly you get momentum, winning breeds confidence amongst everyone, we want to get the momentum and add a few players ready for next season.’

US Portsmouth boss Grice, who watched his troops suffer a 5-1 defeat at Shaftesbury on Saturday, believes this is one of the worst times to be facing a Portchester side full of confidence having lost just twice in their previous 16 fixtures in all competition.

‘Full respect for what Gav Spurway (assistant manager) and Dave Carter have done there,’ said Grice.

‘There’s no doubt it was difficult when they were losing games at the start of the season but they stuck with it and it’s starting to gel for them - and now it’s coming good. I’ve got to be honest, we’re actually probably playing Portchester at the worst time.’